Old Time Musketry and Los Bolos tonight at Bar Chord!

Old Time Musketry is back at Bar Chord tonight sharing the bill with Los Bolos, a band led by Jesse Stacken which focuses on the music of Willie Nelson.

8:30pm Los Bolos
Jesse Lewis - guitar
Jesse Stacken - piano
Dan Loomis - bass
Vinnie Sperrazza - drums

9:30pm Old Time Musketry
Adam Schneit - woodwinds
JP Schlegelmilch - accordion and keyboard
Phil Rowan - bass
Max Goldman - drums

Jesse Stacken on his Messiaen Project

Here's an interview with pianist, composer, and all-around music lover Jesse Stacken. He is currently involved with his Messiaen Project, where he writes a piece every week using the compositional techniques of the modernist master composer Olivier Messiaen. Recordings of the pieces are posted weekly on his blog.

The interview is great, and Jesse's honesty and openness about his creative process is really refreshing. I particularly enjoy his perspectives on musical influences, the effects of social media, and the struggle to stay true to your own creative instincts.

"At the end of the day, I guess I try not to worry about what others think or what others are doing, and just be myself, with myself, experiencing the beauty of nature, and allowing what I love to be apart of the music I create. It’s not always easy to do that, but a little struggle and discomfort is good."

Jesse Stacken's Weekly Composition Project

I was just at pianist/composer Jesse Stacken's website catching up on his weekly composition project. He's writing a new piece every week and posting a recording and score online. This is an inspiring feat, my composing process can be pretty slow. Also, Jesse is exploring specific musical concepts in each piece, like a compositional etude. My favorite so far is "Seeing Iris", a slow brooding piece with mystical-sounding chords constructed from a diminished scale.

I Beam Piano Marathon

Last week there was a very special event at the Gowanus performance space I Beam, a marathon concert of pianists from the NYC jazz and improvised music community to raise money to repair I Beam's piano. The concert went from 5 to 11pm and there were about 20 pianists performing solo, mostly improvised sets. It was a fascinating experience to see so many approaches to improvisation in a solo piano context. I played a few pieces by Bill Frisell, which I've been working on for an upcoming recording project. The only other pianist who didn't play a free improv set was Akiko Pavolka, who played and sang some of her original songs. Here are some clips:

Jesse Stacken and Kirk Knuffke at Cornelia St Cafe

On Sunday I heard pianist Jesse Stacken and cornetist Kirk Knuffke at Cornelia St, who were celebrating the release of their latest album of duets, "Orange was the Color." The new album focuses on the music of Charles Mingus, and they picked some great tunes from the vast body of work of a master composer. Indeed, they played some of my personal favorites, like "Duke Ellington's Sound of Love", and "Peggy's Blue Skylight."
The duo didn't exclusively play the Mingus songbook on the gig, and it was interesting to see the interconnectedness of their repertoire choices. There were two Steve Lacy pieces, who was also a great admirer of Mingus, and who also recorded some Mingus tunes in his duet albums with Mal Waldron. There was also "Such Sweet Thunder" by Duke Ellington, perhaps Mingus' greatest influence. This is from one of my favorite Duke records, also called "Such Sweet Thunder". I did an arrangement of a piece called "Sonnet for Caesar" from that record for Old Time Musketry, you can listen here.

Find more Old Time Musketry songs at Myspace Music

Here's a short clip of Jesse and Kirk's rendition of "Such Sweet Thunder"






There were also pieces by Carla Bley, Misha Mengleberg, and Albert Ayler. Jesse and Kirk have a really deep rapport that can only come from years of playing together, and they kept a really nice rhythmic intensity on the swinging tunes which is not easy to do in a piano/horn duo setting! I also always enjoy seeing musicians taking on a repertoire project, hearing them interpret music that they connect with.